


Melt the Tension

by TheRealLadyLoki



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bath Sex, Established Relationship, Injured Tony, Insecure Tony Stark, M/M, Pain, Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:58:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6321364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealLadyLoki/pseuds/TheRealLadyLoki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When are you coming home? - TS</p><p>Love, it's been three seconds since your last text. /Still/ at a red light three blocks from the tower. Will be home ASAP. - SR</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melt the Tension

When are you coming home? - TS

Love, it's been three seconds since your last text. /Still/ at a red light three blocks from the tower. Will be home ASAP. - SR

Tony rolled his eyes as he read over the last text that his boyfriend had sent him. It _had_ to have been more than three seconds since he'd last asked Steve when he was coming home... right? He sunk deeper into the Jacuzzi-style bathtub, until his chocolate brown eyes were barely visible above the horizon of bubbles. It seemed like an eternity had gone by since JARVIS had recommended he take a soak to try and ease some of the tension out of his lower back and shoulders.

He had the water as hot as he could stand it, and had turned on the spa functions to try and speed-up the relaxation process. Soft jazz poured out from the stereo system above the tub, built into the wall behind a thick sheet of glass to protect it from the spray of the showerhead. It wasn't his usual taste, but then, the rock music he usually blared in his lab was meant to keep him _awake_. And that was the absolute _last_ thing he wanted right then.

Steve hated it when he would fall asleep in the tub, though the actual occasions where that had happened were few and far between. Tony argued that the tub wasn't deep enough for him to slip under the water's surface and drown when they were inside together.

Grabbing his phone, he pulled up the camera and lifted one leg so that his thigh peeked over the bubbles that clung to him like a second skin. He angled the camera just right so that it caught just the slightest glimpse of dank curls and his sleepy, half-hard cock. Smirking, he attached it to his next text to Steve.

Its kinda lonely in this big tub all by myself... - TS

The time stamp just below the text showed that the message had been read at 6:32 PM. Tony had thought about showing Steve how to disable that function on his phone, but decided against it at the last minute. After all, it proved to be a fairly decent gauge for how pissed-off Steve was after a fight. The big lug had a tendency to read his messages and not respond for hours, or type and re-type his message countless times before finally sending it.

Tony closed his eyes and dipped his head under the water. The music seemed impossibly louder beneath the surface, like there was an amplifier hidden away at the bottom of the tub. And as he reclined on the bottom of the tub, holding his breath till it became just shy of painful, he felt more than heard his phone vibrate.

He resurfaced, drawing in a huge breath of air and leaning back, letting the water drip from his hair and map out complicated patterns on his face. Silently thankful for the waterproof casing on his phone, he unlocked it and pulled up Steve's latest reply.

On your left. - SR

Tony stiffened momentarily, not having heard anyone come into the bathroom. But when he took in the sight of his lover, water dripping from his mussed blond locks as he struggled to pull off clothes that had become like a second skin, he forgot how to breathe. "The hell happened to you?"

"I got your text. Traffic was too slow, so I ditched the cab and ran the last two blocks to the tower." Steve said. "You have any idea how hard its raining out there?" As if to prove his point, he wrung his t-shirt out over the trashcan.

Tony slid forward a bit, making room for the larger man. "Come on in. I'll warm you up."

He groaned when Steve slid in behind him, their bodies fitting together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Steve's big hands, dripping with small, lavender scented bubbles, slowly began to map out all of the sore spots on Tony's back. It went without saying that Steve had memorized every scar, knew the location of every broken bone or torn muscle that Tony had ever suffered (and still had the misfortune of suffering from).

It was a kind of perfect intimacy that Tony could never hope to understand, honed through years of carefully exploring each other's bodies and minds. Sometimes, it still amazed Tony that he felt comfortable enough around Steve to allow himself to be this vulnerable around him.

"So," Steve said softly, his voice scarcely above a whisper. His breath ghosted over Tony's shoulder and made his skin break out in gooseflesh. "You want to tell me what happened for you to throw out your back? Or are you going to make me guess?"

Something in Tony's eyes flashed, and a his lips curved in a sinful smirk, "Was doing yoga. I know how you like how..." he licked his lips and blew him a little kiss " _flexible_ I can be."

"I also don't want you to be hurting yourself." He pressed a kiss to the juncture between his neck and shoulder, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. "But I also know that you'd rather die than be caught in spandex or sweats, and your suits are far too expensive to risk ruining with sweat. So, want to try again?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "You know me too well." And then, he sighed, "I was testing the new autopilot function on the new suit -,"

" _Tony_ -" Steve said warningly, not liking where this was going.

"- and things got a little out of hand. No reason for you to get your pretty-boy knickers in a twist." Tony finished.

He waited for the lecture that was sure to follow. Steve was known for using the fact that Tony was only human, and he wasn't getting any younger, against him. He couldn't be as reckless as he'd been when he was in his twenties and thirties, or he'd risk doing serious, long-term damage to his body. But the lecture never came. Instead, Steve wrapped his arms around him tightly and pulled him close to his sudsy chest.

All the words that were left unsaid were perfectly transmitted in that single embrace.

Steve had come too close to losing Tony too many times to have him taking any unnecessary risks. There were ways to test the new equipment without putting himself in harms way, they both knew that. And Steve couldn't bare the idea of one day returning to the tower and finding a full-scale catastrophe that had taken Tony from him for good. Tony leaned back into his embrace, rubbing soothing circles on his thigh beneath the surface of the water.

Strong, calloused fingers began to map out the contours of Tony's chest, pressing gently along the scar tissue that hinted at where the arc reactor had once been. He could feel Tony's heart beating erratically beneath his fingertips, could sense the slight acceleration of his breathing, and he smirked. That particular mass of scar tissue had always been a massive erogenous zone for his lover.

As if on cue, his half-hard cock began to swell, curving up to rest fat and heavy on his belly.

Steve chuckled softly, "You like that, baby?"

 _"Yes..."_ Tony shivered as Steve shifted their bodies into a more comfortable position, causing one of the water jets to start a violent assault on his perineum.

His hands began to move lower, a finger dipping in to tease at the sensitive flesh of his bellybutton, before firmly gripping his cock. Pre-cum had begun to leak from the slit, the translucent liquid barely discernable in the field of bubbles that had conformed to Tony's mess of dark pubic hair.

"Want me to jerk you off? Make you scream my name, remind this whole tower _exactly_ who you belong to?" The water was a perfect replacement for lube, making his movements seem effortless as he began a slow and steady pace.

Tony was practically putty in his hands. " _Fuck_ , Stevie..."

Momentarily distracted, he didn't even notice that Steve's other hand had left his chest and had slipped between their two bodies until one thick finger teased his spasming hole. He gasps, back arching painfully when that finger slipped inside. The sudden pain was gone almost as quickly as it had come, however, when Steve released his cock, grabbed his hip, and pushed him back firmly against his chest. His back straightened out and he sighed in relief.

"This is about _relaxing_." Steve said firmly, yet gently. With that, he returned to gently working Tony open, adding a second finger beside the first. "You're hurt and I'm trying to make it better. Don't make my job harder, baby boy."

Tony's eyes widened a bit when he felt Steve's length press up against the small of his back, "Don't think you could get much harder if you tried, love."

In response, Steve began to scissor his fingers torturously slowly. His other hand returned to Tony's neglected length, working it in rhythm with his fingers. Every time Tony would buck and try to encourage him to speed up, Steve would stop. Eventually, Tony took the hint.

By the time he could easily work three fingers inside of Tony, the brunette was a blubbering mess in his arms. He was tense for an entirely different reason, Steve gently reminding him to breathe as he slipped the fingers out of his tight channel and replaced them with something much bigger.

It was moments like these that made Tony wish the bathtub was just a little bit bigger. It would make things so much easier.

"Hold still now." Steve said, lining up his cock with Tony's entrance. With a gentle thrust, the head was inside. Steadily, he burrowed deeper and deeper until he was buried to the hilt. "How's that feel, Tones?"

For a moment, Tony was incapable of forming a coherent sentence. Finally, he forced out a weak, _"Fuck_ , that's good," and pushed back into Steve's arms.

Ordinarily, Tony hated bath sex about as much (if not more) than Steve hated Tony falling asleep in the tub when he was by himself. The tub might've seemed luxurious at a glance, but two bodies moving together in the heat of passion had a tendency to prove just how shallow it actually was. Over the course of the last three months, they've had to have the floor re-done five times because the water had compromised the floor.

But when Steve was pounding into him, pressed so tightly against him that it was impossible to tell where one body stopped and the other started, the last thing that he cared about was how much it was going to cost to repair the floor _again_. Because everything just felt so damn _good_ and - _oh_ , Steve had just hit that little bundle of nerves inside him that had him seeing stars and suddenly they were both so lost that Steve no longer cared that Tony was meeting his thrusts.

It wasn't long until they found their release. Steve went over the edge first, biting into the juncture of Tony's neck as he spilled his seed deep inside of him. Tony followed soon after, thick ropes of white all but obliterating the last remaining bubbles that desperately clung to the water's surface.

They each took a moment to come back down from their respective post-orgasmic highs, before Tony offered flatly, "The water's cold. Gross."

Steve rolled his eyes, "Ready for bed, are we, your highness?" Without waiting for an answer to his sarcastic retort, he flipped the switch to drain the tub and scooped Tony up in his arms. He only paused once on his way to the bedroom, and that was to wrap Tony in one of the towels off the heated rack.

A few moments later, they were dry and settled down into bed. Tony was laying flat on his stomach, Steve's strong, gentle hands slowly working out whatever tension remained in his lower back.

"Promise me that you'll be more careful, okay? I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to you." Even if it was something as stupid as injuring himself sparring, he'd still gotten hurt and there was nothing Steve could do to change that. It made him feel weak, and he hated it.

"If I didn't throw out my back every now and then, then that $16,000 tub would be a complete waste. Not to mention how many times I've had to fix the floor just to keep the tub from falling through the ceiling to Bruce's bedroom." Tony said cheekily. But then, softer, "I'll do my best. But I can't promise I'll never get hurt."

Steve kissed the back of his neck, "Well, _I_ promise to always be there to put the pieces back together. You can believe that, Tony." Steve said softly. "I love you."

"I know." Tony's smile was hidden by his pillow. "I love you too."


End file.
